December 22, 2006
Don't Miss Out
Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter right now to make sure you get to read the serial novelette, "A Christmas Ghost Story."
(To subscribe, just look to the left, enter your email address and click "submit.")
Here's the e-cover, with art by Caniglia:
That '70s Doug
Hardly appropriate for Christmas, but my old friend from college, Carolyn Thomason, found this photo of me when I was visiting her at Sweet Briar College back in about '78 or thereabouts.
Notice the sweater, flannel shirt and painter's pants. I had no sense of style or anything. But each of those was my favorite back then. No, they don't go together. But I did have hair.
The picture is vaguely lewd, although completely innocent. The cut-out poster was by a fairly popular cartoonist of the time (B. Kliban) whose cats were famous back then.
December 11, 2006
From the Newsletter This Week
Dear Reader
Every year, somewhere between friends and family, the gift shuffle begins. What this means -- increasingly -- is that everyone hustles and bustles around to get the right gift for the right person. This is a wonderful gesture, but...we've decided this year to ask anyone who wishes to send us a gift to pick their favorite cause or charity and give the money they'd spend on gifts to the charity.
My normal need for great holiday gifts is intense -- it's like a burning, itching feeling that no amount of rash-reducing lotion can ease. I am a major giftaholic at Christmas-time, from early childhood. Couldn't wait for the mystery boxes under the tree to be open. This kept going clear up into my forties!
But now, I don't know -- if it's the thought that counts, I'd rather someone took the money they'd spend and just pass it to something important to them in the world (or even keep it for something they really need to have.)
It's always been nice to get gifts from readers and friends at Christmas time. Believe me -- without Paula and Mark's cookies, I doubt I'd make it through the writing of a novel these days (thanks, Paula and Mark!)
But if you're going to give me a gift, go one step further and let me know you've sent some money to your favorite charity as a way of honoring the season. Or invest in something for some young people you know who are working hard toward their goals. Many people invest in the stock market and real estate, but don't always invest in their own kids -- do you have a neighbor kid who gets out and mows lawns and offers to help, or who works weekends at McDonald's to get ready for paying for college? Give that kid a gift toward the goal of college.
Give someone you know a chance to do something they've dreamed of doing. Or find an animal shelter that needs blankets and dog food and cat food. Or a legal defense fund to help people who don't have the money for the legal battles they're up against. Or to a local nonprofit that is doing something terrific in your community.
This is not pay it forward or pay it back. This is giving a gift that's going to keep growing in some way that you may never even see. Sometimes the right book or music opens someone's mind. Our friends Anne and Mick Schwartz -- the parents of Matt, who runs Shocklines -- sent us some books on philosophy not long ago that changed our lives for the better. That's the kind of gift worth passing on.
Got your own kids? You're very fortunate. To me, the greatest gift when I was in high school and college that my folks gave me was simply to believe in me and when they could, inspire me to create opportunities for pursuing my dreams and goals.
Sometimes the right gift for a kid is the gift that inspires and allows a young man or young woman to create possibilities from it. Sometimes, it's a new pair of shoes for a job interview; sometimes, if you have the resources, it's an adventure to some new place or area of study; sometimes, even without money, it's some insight into what adult life and responsibility holds when a kid is on the verge of going out into the world.
And sometimes, you'll know someone who is about to retire -- and maybe the right gift for that person is belief in the new pursuits they'll have -- whether it's chasing a dream they postponed since their childhood, or taking up a new sport or hobby.
Too often we think of Hannukah and Christmas gifts -- and any seasonal gift -- as this thing you buy in the store that has a value that some marketing department has attached to it -- a toy, a jewel, a necktie -- when in fact, the value is something you have within you, and that is the gift of experience or understanding or acceptance you and I pass to others at these special moments of the year.
Sometimes, the physical gift is the embodiment of that value -- a DVD or a CD that you hope will inspire or comfort or encourage or entertain or show a different point of view.
And sometimes that value can only be offered directly -- a pat on the back, a donation to charity, an insight, an afternoon devoted to what the gift's receiver finds important.
Your spouse loves to dance, but you don't? Go out for a special night of dancing. Your best friend loves classical music, but you don't? Show her or him how important the friendship is, and find a cool local chorale of Handel's Messiah or some other holiday music event, and take 'em.
I don't care what faith you are, what holiday you choose to celebrate -- I'm convinced that we bring our gifts in winter because it can seem a bleak season and every good instinct in us is to bring something wonderful into being at such a cold time.
Yet, it's also those frosty days that get us thinking about what really counts, what matters, and we see through the thin veil of the year's passing -- to the idea of joy itself.
Thank you for wandering through my December thoughts this time of year.
Douglas Clegg
December 05, 2006
Lucy's Got a Condo
Raul has been building a special new home for Lucy (our new rabbit, rescued from the CT Humane Society), modified from our previous rabbit's old condo. This is only part of the space she lives in -- Lucy has the run of an entire room much of the time.
But while we're still getting her used to her environment -- and the dog and cat -- we're keeping her in about a third of the total room size.
Anyway, here is her new three level condo. You can see her in this shot, and you may be able to see some of her toys on the floor.
